Blythswood News
Number 88 Autumn 2025
Remember, your gifts help them all
Among the countless homes I’ve visited with shoeboxes, two stand out.
One because of what it shows of the harsh reality of old age in the poorest parts of Europe. Visiting a pensioner couple, we found them in beds off their kitchen, hardly awake, the pastor’s wife pulling the sheets over their incontinence pants. Watching from afar, their daughter in Italy could see them on a webcam. Beside their beds the pastor and his wife come and hold their hands. Their son was nearby, but had a problem with drink. They are the abandoned generation, living in a village in Moldova which the young people have left to earn money elsewhere. Out of sight and forgotten, but not by you. For them you filled shoeboxes.
The other because of the relentless workload of a single mother on a smallholding. On the edge of a village, not far from Odesa, it was one of those dwellings where it was hard to tell where the farmyard ended and the house began. Three children in the room and their mother rushed back to the house when our van approached. She’d been looking after the cows. The TV was on but not for long as the power failed just after we arrived.
Thank you for filling a shoebox. Please do it again this year. Each box makes such a difference to people in need. And if for any reason you can’t – you can sponsor a box to be made up by Blythswood on your behalf. For the average cost of a box, £28, we’ll fill a box with items from our list and deliver it to someone in need.
Thank you for supporting Blythswood’s 2025 Shoe Box Appeal. We’re looking forward to bringing your gifts to people in need again this year.
Jeremy Ross
Chief Executive
Remember, your gifts help them all
Among the countless homes I’ve visited with shoeboxes, two stand out.
One because of what it shows of the harsh reality of old age in the poorest parts of Europe. Visiting a pensioner couple, we found them in beds off their kitchen, hardly awake, the pastor’s wife pulling the sheets over their incontinence pants. Watching from afar, their daughter in Italy could see them on a webcam. Beside their beds the pastor and his wife come and hold their hands. Their son was nearby, but had a problem with drink. They are the abandoned generation, living in a village in Moldova which the young people have left to earn money elsewhere. Out of sight and forgotten, but not by you. For them you filled shoeboxes.
The other because of the relentless workload of a single mother on a smallholding. On the edge of a village, not far from Odesa, it was one of those dwellings where it was hard to tell where the farmyard ended and the house began. Three children in the room and their mother rushed back to the house when our van approached. She’d been looking after the cows. The TV was on but not for long as the power failed just after we arrived.
Thank you for filling a shoebox. Please do it again this year. Each box makes such a difference to people in need. And if for any reason you can’t – you can sponsor a box to be made up by Blythswood on your behalf. For the average cost of a box, £28, we’ll fill a box with items from our list and deliver it to someone in need.
Thank you for supporting Blythswood’s 2025 Shoe Box Appeal. We’re looking forward to bringing your gifts to people in need again this year.
Jeremy Ross
Chief Executive
Shoebox gifts for bus station family
Gedeon received his shoebox in a bus station. No, he wasn’t going anywhere. Quite simply, the bus station is warm. And it has an indoor toilet and wash basin.
Gifts cheer isolated pensioners in rural hungary
A woolly hat and scarf. As a double amputee, it’s not easy for Micsu to get out and about much. But being able to stay warm indoors is just as important and the knitted goods which he received in his Blythswood shoebox are good for that, too.
The message that someone cares
2024 was a difficult year for Jovana and her family. Being an oncology patient was hard enough but then she and her family lost their home and all their belongings in a fire. David Armus who runs Blythswood Serbia delivered shoeboxes to their temporary accommodation.
Sharing the story of Jesus
Jeremy Ross joined a team from partner organisation Heritage Ukraine to distribute shoeboxes in a low-income village 15 km from Odesa. “This girl opened her box at the village well which was beside her house,” he says. “She rifled through the contents then became engrossed in the book.”
Gifts help family of field workers
This little log-built house is home to Ariana and her three brothers, Onisim, Marian and Remus. It is the last house in a lane which looks out over the flat, fertile fields of Bihor county, western Romania.
A moment of joy and love
For four-year-old Serbeze, a shoebox full of simple gifts isn’t just a present – it’s treasure!
A light in the dark
Raya lives with her young family in her parents’ house in a village in Moldova. She has three small children, and the youngest is only six months old.
He’s done this before!
A set of juggling balls – how about that for an unusual gift? And, as happens time and again with such inspired choices, they landed in the right hands.
Shoebox surprise for hungry man
Sixty-three-year-old Zlatko was searching through other people’s rubbish in the city of Kragujevac, when he was approached by David Armus from Blythswood Serbia. “I’m looking for something to eat,” he explained to David. “And maybe some things that could be useful to me.”
Too young to understand
Nadia’s husband had passed away before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. She lived in a village near Kyiv with her grown children: a son, Dmytro, and a daughter, Tetiana and her husband. Tetiana was pregnant with their first child when her husband volunteered for the army. He died in the war before their son was born, in 2023.
Surprised by joy in Bulgaria
Zhani Slavcheva isn’t easily shocked. She and her husband Stoyan have been serving some of the poorest communities in Sliven, Bulgaria, for many years, bringing the gospel and responding to people’s immediate needs.
A diary can be more than a gift
Which item in a Blythswood shoebox might grab the attention of a 13-year-old boy? For Agron, it was a diary. “My life is not easy because my father is in prison,” he says. “I always try to be hopeful but when I have been thinking a lot, I find it difficult to share my thoughts with others.
Great excitement for young family in rural Romania
Imagine your children or grandchildren being given a lift to school with a horse and cart. That would be exciting for them, wouldn’t it? But for five-year-old twins Liviu and Livia, it’s an every-day occurrence.
Practical help for families living on the edge
The median salary in Kosovo for those lucky enough to have a job equates to less than £500 per month. But there are many on the margins of society whose standard of living does not come anywhere near that level.
Shoebox delivery brought someone to talk to
Evdokia has been poorly rewarded for a lifetime of hard work. Born in 1937, she lives in a village in southern Moldova and spent her life working on a collective farm, which was typical of the soviet era. After it was shut down, she worked wherever she could, mostly labouring in the fields around her village.
Helping young mums and mums-to-be
Since the early days of Blythswood’s Shoe Box Appeal – the 1990s – some of the gift-filled boxes have gone to Pro Vita Medica, an organisation in Romania’s Banat region which helps young women to cope with unwanted pregnancy.
Practical help for our injured soldier
Vladyslav (7), Dmytro (5) and Taras (6) are three brothers growing up in Ternopil Oblast, Ukraine. Their father was seriously injured while defending his country and the family lives in a village, in difficult circumstances.